City Power: ‘We are at the mercy of the weather,’ over 3600 outage calls

Johannesburg power utility, City Power’s technical teams worked well into Saturday night trying to restore power to several areas hit by the trifactor compounding the country’s electricity supply crisis: Cable theft, vandalism and flooding.

3600 outage calls across Johannesburg

More than 1500 calls from Roodepoort

As of Sunday morning, City Power received more than 3600 reports of power outages across Johannesburg.

Of the 3600, more than 1500 power failure reports came out of Roodepoort with about 750 calls logged overnight.

By Saturday night, City Power received reports of five medium voltage outages across the area.

City Power’s Isaac Mangena said about eight teams of technicians had been dispatched into Roodepoort to tend to the outages but work was delayed by the weather and load shedding.

“We are at the mercy of the weather and flooding is exacerbating and frustrating the repairs process,” said Mangena.

ALSO READ: Lotus substation: City Power technicians resume repairs after rain disruption

“We identified areas with serious pressure points and we’ve moved more teams to those areas,” he added.

But despite technicians undertaking repair work overnight, the rainy weather and subsequent flooding have delayed restoration times.

Key problem areas as of Saturday include:

• Christiaan De Wet Substation (Wilgeheuwal, Allen’s Nek, Weltevredenpark): About 98% of power has been restored and teams are working on completion.
  
• Tshepisong: About 90% power has been restored, however a portion of Line A that supplies Leratong Village remains off. Repairs will continue in on Sunday morning.
  
• Peter Road Substation (Willowbrook, Little Falls, Amarosa Shopping Centre, Ruimsig, Tres Jolie and surrounds): The transformer tripped at 14.29pm. Power supply will remain off until the transformer can be put on load again.
  
• William Nicol Switching Station (Florida Park, Floracliffe and surrounds): There is a power outage and operators are enroute to investigate. Further details will be communicated once the root cause is established.
  
• Fleurhof (Glen lea Switching Station): Power supply tripped, mini substations remain off, operator is collecting material this evening for repairs.
  
• Witpoortjie Ext 16: There is a power outage in the area and this has been escalated for investigation.

ALSO SEE: PHOTOS: These Roodepoort areas are affected by 17-metre cable theft

Cable theft and vandalism increasing during load shedding

Mangena said officials were reluctant to commit to restoration times.

“What we have found in certain areas like Witpoortjie, as the teams are conducting repairs on one site, another part of the line is getting attacked, where cable theft is taking place.

“So our technicians will estimate the repair process will take a certain amount of time, but when they have to restore the power, they cannot, because cables have been stolen on another connecting line,” explained Mangena.

Load shedding occurs about three times a day, and in these instances City Power has noted a spike in attacks on its infrastructure.

ALSO WATCH: ‘They are stealing all the robots’ – Traffic light vandalism occurring across Joburg

City Power beefs up services across all departments

On complaints of poor communications: Mangena said the power utility had increased capacity across all departments.

Communication and updates take place in real time across serval platforms including City Power’s official social media accounts and local WhatsApp groups.

“Roodepoort and Lenasia have the most active councilors who have greatly assisted us in providing updates to affected communities,” said Mangena.

“But it’s also that people who are understandably frustrated, don’t want to hear that we are still working on the fault, they want to know if they can cook dinner or if they must go out.”

Repairs to outages can only take place outside of load shedding times.

In the past, City Power has asked Eskom for reprieve from load shedding to allow technicians to attend to faults, when it had over 5000 outage reports due to inclement weather.

“We are in communications with Eskom daily and are monitoring whether it would be necessary to ask Eskom for certain areas to be exempt from load shedding, like if its gone three days and the teams cannot access the areas due to flood damage.”

NOW READ: City Power records at least 33 cable theft incidents this week